title: [Malnutrition in patients with cancer; four years experience].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To analyze the prevalence and degree of malnutrition among patients with cancer who were sent to an Oncological Nutrition visit.
  
  
  METHODS
  It is an observational crosssectional descriptive study. First nutrition visit data of all patientes aged ≥ 18 with cancer who were evaluated from march of 2008 to february of 2012 were used. A total of 997 patients were studied using the Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment.
  
  
  RESULTS
  69% of the patients had lost more than 5% of their usual weight within the previous 3 months, the patients with the highest frequency of weight loss were those with digestive cancer. Eating problems were encountered by the 81.2% of the patients, the most frequent problem being anorexia (53.3%) and the median number of symptoms was 3. Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment shows a malnutrition prevalence of 72.9% (29.9% with moderate malnutrition and 43% with severe malnutrition). Malnutrition was related to the type of cancer and the stage of the disease and was not related to age, gender neither usual body mass index.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Malnutrition prevalence among patients who were evaluated in our consulting-room is high. Nutritional evaluation is very important to detect patients at risk of malnutrition or with malnutrition and helps to choose the nutritional treatment.
authors.affiliation: Servicio de Endocrinoloxía e Nutrición, Complexo HospitalarioUniversitario de Ourense, Ourense, España. maria.teresa.fernandez.lopez@sergas.es
authors.forename: María Teresa
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Fernández López
authors.forename: Cecilia Alejandra
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Saenz Fernández
authors.forename: María Trinidad
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: de Sás Prada
authors.forename: Susana
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Alonso Urrutia
authors.forename: María Luisa
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Bardasco Alonso
authors.forename: María Teresa
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Alves Pérez
authors.forename: María Teresa
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Rivero Luis
authors.forename: Paula
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Alvarez Vázquez
authors.forename: José Antonio
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Mato Mato
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D044342:Malnutrition / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000150:complications* / Q000453:epidemiology; D015596:Nutrition Assessment; D009752:Nutritional Status; D015995:Prevalence; D055815:Young Adult